The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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You're getting serious about doing this Buddhist practice.

There is value in when you sit down to meditate, to take the meditation seriously.

But to say that is dangerous because it can be heard as a big obligation.

Like now I have to kind of like really buckle down and I must have been goofing off for a guild to say that.

And basically I must be doing it wrong.

I'm not sure what taking seriously means, but obviously I'm not taking seriously enough.

And I'm better, better, get serious now, but I don't quite know how.

I'll just, you know, strain or push or, you know, get grim or something.

But there is a way of also being too laxedasical, too easy going, too kind of just kind of like, oh, so this Buddhism is great.

Just don't have any attachments to everything, just kind of like it's okay that I'm drifting a lot.

I'm not attached to spending 20 minutes in fantasy, but I'm not attached to not doing it.

It's just fine to wander off.

So that's not quite right either.

And so what's the middle way?

But how can we be serious without taking it seriously or how to be serious without taking it too personally?

Or there's a sign, I think, at our retreat center that says something like, what we're doing is so important.

It's too, it's so important you shouldn't take it seriously.

And because of how we mess it up, if we take things seriously, it's maybe there's too much self involved.

If you take it seriously, it's all about me, myself and mine. I have to do it.

And maybe it's rather than using the word serious, use the word devotion.

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